Tag Archives: future

It was a pretty fun experience. My mom, Nate’s mom, and I all went down to the David’s Bridal in Calgary and spent my hour and a half appointment time looking at probably six dresses total. I had a tough time choosing between two of the dresses in the end, but I think I chose the right one. It’ll need some alterations (I’m short as hell; plus, they didn’t have my dress size in that style), but it’ll need fewer alterations than the other dress I would have chosen and seems more appropriate to wear for an outdoor summer wedding.

We (Nate, Nate’s brother Curtis, my mom, and I) also went and saw Captain America: Civil War. It was freaking great. Go see it if you’re into that stuff, but don’t go if you’re not caught up on your Marvel movies. You’ll be VERY confused. Just ask my mom.

“To determine the best and worst graduate degrees for jobs, Fortune consulted the careers site, PayScale. The site considered the full-range of graduate degrees, including Ph.D.s, master’s degrees, and law degrees.”

The ranking is based upon three factors: long-term outlook for job growth, median salaries at mid-career, and job satisfaction scores.

You know that “possibly good news” I mentioned a little more than a week ago? Well, now it’s official, so I can blog about it. Nate bought a condo that’s ridiculously close to both his place of employment and campus, and we’ll be moving there at the end of June.

How cool is that? Even cooler is the fact that it’s not a basement and has actual windows and a balcony and no one above us. I’m super excited.

Ten years ago, I was in the midst of my junior year of high school. If you had told me even one of these bullet points was going to apply to me in ten years, I would never have believed you. If you had told me all of them were going to apply to me at the same time, I probably would have just laughed at you. But here I am, ten years later, and they all apply.

Hell, if you would have told me any portion of these points even five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

Seriously, I’m really, really starting to freak out about this. I might have to actually road trip up there to get an apartment in person, ‘cause this is ridiculous. Almost had to go to the hospital again ‘cause I was in full panic attack mode.

So I’m trying to make this Calgary vs. Ottawa decision as objectively as possible, but I’m still having a lot of trouble with it. You might be thinking, “hey, you idiot, it’s not that hard of a decision.”

Well, it is for me, okay?

So let me look at the pros and cons for both choices and see if that helps me decide.

Calgary PROs:

University of Calgary is a research university and it’s ranked fairly high in Canada.

I’m already in love with the city, even after just watching some walking tours on YouTube.

I’d be about the same distance away from Moscow as I was in Vancouver, which was a pretty ideal distance.

The move up there won’t be too expensive and will only take a day (or two).

Mayor Nenshi!

Calgary CONs:

Monthly rent is approximately the same as in Vancouver (i.e., expensive).

Since my original supervisor is leaving, I’m basically going to get stuck with someone who didn’t originally want me. That’s really stressful to me, especially given my last supervisor/student relationship and how horrible that whole thing was.

I’m scared of the city flooding as badly as it did last summer.

Ottawa PROs:

My supervisor who’s moving there seems like a really nice and genuine person and really wants me to work with him.

I’d get more money there, especially if I decided to be a TA.

Lower cost of living than Calgary.

It’s the capital of Canada! How cool?

Carleton University (where my supervisor’s headed) has a math department that does a lot of things jointly with the University of Ottawa, which means a more diverse offering of classes.

Ottawa CONs:

I’d have to move all the freaking way across the continent again. Expensive and time-consuming and stressful.

I’m not “feeling” the city of Ottawa the same way as Calgary.

Carleton isn’t a research university. It’s actually the level below a true university, which is a bit concerning to me (it’s on the same level as Simon-Fraser University, which is a “comprehensive university” and not a research university).

I already have my study permit for Calgary; I’d have to get that changed if I go to a different school. PLUS I’d have to get all sorts of new paperwork showing that Carleton “accepted” me.

If I end up going for a PhD, one of the requirements that must be fulfilled is that I’d have to be fluent in another language enough so that I could read and comprehend a mathematical paper in said other language. While that’s a good skill to have, obviously, I am about as unilingual as a person can get and I don’t know if I even have the capacity to learn another language. Y’know, ‘cause I’m an idiot.

I just wanted to apologize for my blog posts being really sucky as of late (and also for my uploading a slew of them like once a month). I don’t feel like going into the details right now (just because they’re long and involved), but I’m currently lacking any long-term plans past summer due to several factors…and that really stresses me out. Not having at least a two-year plan is really, really difficult for me, so I’ve pretty much been a little ball of anxiety for the past month and a half or so and thus haven’t been feeling particularly humorous/creative/fun/entertaining—hence the crap posts.

I’m trying to just fake it through No Plan Land right now, but it’s hard. Please bear with (or unsubscribe if you want, I won’t be offended or anything, haha).

Grad school. It’s going to have to happen again. I am about 99.9999% sure I want to spend the rest of my life teaching stats or doing something stats-related. The best plan for getting a permanent (hopefully tenured) position at some point? Getting a PhD. So…yeah.

Grad school in Canada. If I’m going, I’m going up there. Reasons include: I’m too much of a coward to re-take the GRE (my old scores are expired), the GRE is dumb anyway and Canada seems to know that, and I have a chance of getting accepted at UBC again and I pretty much constantly daydream about walking Vancouver.

If I don’t get into grad school (likely), the plan is to stay here and keep teaching for another year (Dr. Williams told me that they’d likely have work for me), get a few more degrees (I’m pretty close to two others after the math one), actually STUDY for the GRE, take it, and apply to US schools.

And if a really good job comes up in the meantime, I’m going for it. I JUST WANNA TEACH STAAAAAAAAATS.

I very soon need to make a decision as to what’s going on with my life next. I’d really love to continue teaching here, but since I’m turning 26 next February and have to make the big switch to my own insurance rather than hanging on my parents’, I need to get a job that allows me to do so.

So here’s what’s what:

Math degree is scheduled for completion in Spring 2014. What shall I do after that?

Well, I’m going to schedule a meeting with Dr. Williams soon and ask him if there’s any chance that my current position could turn into something full time (like…being in charge of intro stats perhaps?). If that’s possible, then I’ll just stay here and, in my free time (what’s left of it, at least), continue to take classes.

If not, I pretty much have to go back to grad school somewhere. Not around here—neither UI nor WSU offer a PhD in statistics (yes, seriously. WTF?). But there are a few schools I’m interested in.

I’ve hit this impenetrable wall of depression that I haven’t experienced since high school. Vancouver depression was really “pity me and my horrible life” self-induced sadness. This is like “even if I won a Nobel Prize I’d still want to crawl in a hole and die” sadness.

Blah.

Anyway, for some more school-related blathering:

The UI math department offers a special MAT degree, which is a “Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics” degree. From what I gather, it’s a non-thesis MA track with an emphasis in (surprise!) teaching math.

So currently I have no idea where this math degree will get me other than flailing about even more stuff. But if it ends up going the way statistics went for me, I’ll likely want to teach it.

The MAT degree specifically states that it “only” prepares for teaching at some community colleges. I would be 100% okay with that (community colleges need teachers, too!). I can teach stats as I am, but I don’t think anyone would let me teach math with my current background, so I’d pretty much have to get some sort of advance degree to do so.

The only issue is this: right now I’m on the “statistics” track of the math degrees. I would guess I’d need to move to the “general” track to best prepare for graduate math insanity. That would mean like 5 more semesters rather than 2—which would be totally fine, I love school—but I don’t know about the money issue.

What would be real awesome is if I were to become a permanent lecturer in the stats department. I found out yesterday that I will be teaching in the summer and will most likely be teaching again in the fall (maybe two sections!), but I don’t know how long the demand for a supplemental lecturer will last.

So I guess I just need to stop blabbing about it and go inquire about the MAT. Couldn’t hurt, right?

It’s going to be very difficult for me to leave school again when it becomes time to do so. I know I’ve mentioned this on here before, but in “Ideal Claudia World of Ultimate Happiness”, I would somehow find a way to continue to go to school for the rest of my life. Also, in this world, I’d keep on working my current job, because HOLY CRAP I LOVE IT SO. This was actually the most fantastic semester ever because not only did I get to take a bunch of cool classes, but I also got to teach at the same time.

You know, now that I think about it, even though it’d be a total longshot and would probably never work, I should propose it to the President of the U of I. “I will complete every undergraduate degree you offer if I can keep working as a lecturer to pay for it.” I’ve always said I’ve wanted to do that and then write a book about the experience. That’d actually be pretty good publicity for the University, assuming it was actually a good book (longshot #2). And how cool would it be to study a University by completing every major it has to offer?

I don’t care how outlandish and stupid that idea sounds—it sounds cool to me. And I know I’d run into arguments that would go along the lines of, “well, if you’re actually serious about learning stuff, you don’t necessarily have to stay in school; you can learn things outside of the classroom blah blah blah blah blah.”

Yes, I’m aware of that. Two counters:
1) quite a few of the things offered at a Univeristy are things that, on my own, I probably wouldn’t have either the resources to learn or even just the ability to learn in an efficient manner. Take a foreign language, for example. I’m not too confident about my bilingual ability (assuming I would acquire some) and thus would probably do best in a classroom-type setting. Learning about something else in which I have no background would fall under this category, too.
2) I’m actually one of those people who learns best in a classroom-type setting. I suppose I’m lucky in a way; ever since I entered school I’ve been in an environment that naturally works for me when it comes to actually learning material.

So I met with my advisor today. After explaining that the reason I didn’t take half the classes I’d told him I’d take this semester was because I’ve got the best job EVER, he confirmed that my classes for next semester were good choices.

We also talked about what the heck I’m going to do for the next couple of years. While I’d like to get an actual factual math degree, we both agreed that the more practical (and equally awesome) plan should be for me to fill in my missing math knowledge (the calculus series, the two mathematical statistics classes) and then apply for a stats PhD somewhere. Unfortunately (fortunately? I don’t even know anymore), said PhD, if it were to occur, would not occur anywhere around here, ‘cause neither U of I nor WSU offers a PhD in statistics.

Of course, I’m going to try for the best programs in the country, which I might actually have a shot at considering my old (and TERRIBLE) GRE scores are going to be invalid by next October so I’ll have to retake that (after studying this time, of course).

BUT, I think I’ll have to be here two years, and in that time I think I can actually get a BS in math ANYWAY, so how cool? And I’m glad for the two years, anyway. I’m so sick of moving.

Actually, not really. Assuming all 11 of you subscribers read this regularly, maybe two of you will actually give a crap about this.

But whatever. It’s big news to me.

(this is a repeat for those of you on Facebook, so go ahead and skip if you want)

I’ve saved up a bunch of money working down here at PCC. I’ve decided to take that money and use it to go back to the University of Idaho for (at least) a year.

Why? Multiple reasons.

Reason one: the job market blows heavy metal balls chunks now. Sure, companies are hiring statisticians, but the positions open are all “Senior Statistician” or “Veteran Analyst” or “900-Year-Old Data Wizard”, meaning you need 10+ years of experience, a PhD, or both.

Reason two: I still feel like my math knowledge is insufficient for the level of statistics understanding that I’d like. I never took the actual factual calculus series (despite taking like twenty calc classes) and I feel like I really do need that plus the subsequent Mathematical Statistics course to really understand what the hell I’m doing. If I can crank out the calc classes and some other higher level math, I’d like to try to apply to a PhD program in stats.

Reason three: school is my hot sweet lover. We need each other. In bed.

Reason four: the “why don’t you just go to U of A/PCC?” defense. U of A is super expensive, and being a “transfer” student now (non-traditional, WOO!), I would have had to apply back in like January to have gotten any chance of getting in. And PCC is way cheap, but there aren’t that many classes at the level I’m at since it’s a community college and not a university. Plus, I have to go through a few extra steps to verify that my Canadian degree is in fact legit, and I’m lazy, so that’s a deterrent right there.

Itty bitty reason five: I miss having friends. Hopefully I’ll see you sillies up there as well as make some new friends in band. Yes, I’m taking band.

So WOO! I leave in a few weeks. Gotta pack and all that. Hoorah. So I guess this past year’s been my (super delayed) “gap year.”